on, if
he is faithful.'

"So Oscar went with his father to Mr. Spenser's office. Mr. Spenser
started a little when he saw Oscar; but after talking awhile, he went to
his table, and took from a drawer two balls. 'My little boy left these
here this morning,' he said. 'How long do you think,' turning to Oscar,
'you could keep them up in the air without letting them drop?'

"Oscar was much pleased. Here was his chance; at this office the kind of
thing he could do was wanted. So he dexterously took the balls, and
flung them up and down, and might have kept at it all the morning but
that Mr. Spenser said at last, 'That will do, and it is more than
enough.' He said, turning to Oscar's father: 'As soon as I saw your boy
I thought I recognized him as a boy I saw one day in the school flinging
balls up in the air on the sly behind his teacher's back. I'm sorry to
see that he keeps up the art still. But I felt pretty sure that day that
he couldn't have learned much else. I should be afraid to take him into
my office with a propensity to do things on the sly, for I have other
boys that must learn to be busy. Perhaps you can find some other place
for Oscar.'

"But Oscar could not find the kind of place.

"His friend, Seth Clayton, had been fond of collecting insects all
through his school years. Oscar used to laugh at his boxes full of bugs.
But Seth used to study them over, and talk about them with his teacher,
who told him all she knew, and helped him to find books about them. And
it was when she was leaning over a beautiful specimen of a night-moth
that Oscar had performed his most remarkable feat of keeping three balls
in the air for a second and a half. This was in their last school year.

"And now, after some years more of study, Seth was appointed to join an
expedition to go to South America and look up insects along the Amazon
and in Brazil.

"'Just what I should like to do,' said Oscar; for he had studied a
little about the geography of South America, and thought it would be fun
catching cocoanuts with the help of the monkeys, and have a salary too.
'That is something I really could do,' said Oscar to Seth. But Seth
went, and Oscar was left behind.

"Will Leigh had the best chance, perhaps. He used to be a great crony of
Oscar. He went through the Latin School, and then to Harvard College.
'He was always burrowing into Latin and Greek,' said Oscar; 'much as
ever you could do to get an English word out of him.'

"W